View full sizeJohn Kasarda, Aerotropolis Business ConceptsSchematic of an aerotropolis, with an airport as the hub of an economic zone where travelers and locals can shop, meet, exchange knowledge, do business, eat, sleep and be entertained without going more than 15 minutes from the airport. Aerotropolis schematic (PDF)

Common characteristics

Here are common characteristics among the half dozen U.S. cities that have created an aerotropolis -- extensive aviation-linked commercial zones flanking their airports.

Heavy volume of passenger and cargo operations, both domestic and international

Airport seen as economic engine by both airport and surrounding communities

Marketing plan or economic development strategy identifies key industries to target for the aerotropolis

Source: Kevin O'Brien, director, and Claudette Robey, assistant director, Center for Public Management, Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Urban planners are taking a fresh look at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport as a magnet for development much like the region's highways or the banks of the Cuyahoga River.

The airport, surrounding land and transit routes could be stitched into an "aerotropolis" -- with the airport itself functioning as a central business zone, and commercial and manufacturing companies, typically aviation-related, strung along corridors radiating out as far as 20 miles.

At least that's the concept. So far it's pretty new in the United States. Just six airports have formed aerotropolis districts -- Detroit, Denver, Dallas-Fort Worth, Los Angeles, Memphis and the Piedmont-Triad Airport near Winston-Salem, N.C., according to John Kasarda, a University of North Carolina professor who has specialized in the study of airport cities.

Now, Cleveland State University researchers are examining whether the idea is workable for Hopkins. They were hired under a $63,000 contract by the cities of Berea, Brook Park, Cleveland, Olmsted Falls and Parma, and the airport, to explore what role Hopkins can play as a nucleus of economic development.

"We hope to create some kind of entity to market Hopkins, to further promote air commerce in the region," she said.

The CSU researchers set up public sessions Tuesday and Wednesday to gather ideas from air cargo shippers, real estate firms, retailers, manufacturers and municipal officers who have a stake in whether an aerotropolis develops around Hopkins.

"Airports will shape business location and urban development in the 21st century as much as highways did in the 20th century, railroads in the 19th and seaports in the 18th," Kasarda predicted in a recent article.

Airports are economic drivers in part because airline passengers have income three to five times higher than national averages. Terminals have tens of millions of passengers flowing through every year, compared to eight to 12 annually for a large mall, Kasarda said. Terminal per-square-foot retail sales are triple or more those of malls and downtown stores.

But an aerotropolis is as much about what's "outside the fence" as in.

Berea already has two industrial corridors with manufacturing plants and freight-handlers. But some of the companies are forced to ship goods by truck to airports in Detroit, Chicago, Newark or New York that have planes with bigger cargo holds than aircraft using Hopkins.

"The planes are too small that come in here," said Richard Gareau, president of Midwest Transatlantic Lines, a 70-employee, freight-forwarding business on Bagley Rd.

Gareau said he was excited to know that suburbs near the airport were starting to collaborate on how to tap Hopkins' economic potential.

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